This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention that is recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived, implemented or described. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
The following abbreviations that may be found in the specification and/or the drawing figures are defined as follows:    3GPP third generation partnership project    BS base station (NodeB)    CQI channel quality indicator    DC dual carrier    DCH downlink dedicated channel    DL downlink (NodeB towards UE)    DPCCH dedicated physical control channel    DSCH downlink shared channel    DTX discontinuous transmission    GGSN gateway general packet radio service support node    HARQ hybrid automatic repeat request    HS high speed    HSPA high speed packet access    HSDPA high speed downlink packet access    MIMO multiple input multiple output    NodeB base station    Rel release    SCCH shared control channel    SGSN serving general packet radio service support node    UE user equipment, such as a mobile station, mobile node or mobile terminal    UL uplink (UE towards NodeB)
FIG. 1 shows a simplified block diagram of a HSPA system and network 1.A user terminal, which can be referred to as user equipment (UE) 10, is wireless connected during operation with a NodeB 12. The NodeB 12 is connected via an interface (Iub) to a radio network controller (RNC) 14 that in turn is connected via an interface (Iu) to a core network 16 containing a SGSN and a GGSN.
A problem that arises in relation to HSPA relates to HSPA HARQ signaling for four carrier (4-carrier) MIMO implementations of HSPA.